After being bombarded with all sorts of official and unofficial 'news' about the race to be the next President of the United States this evening as I sifted through my RSS feeds, a few things occurred to me.
2. Much like when a close (or not so close) play happens in a football game and all the fans both at home and in the stands see it through their team preference, the same is happening and will happen this election. One person's down by contact is another person's fumble.
3. In the closing weeks of this election, the rhetoric and nastiness will intensify. After all, this is a pretty significant job and the winner commands a great deal of power. The good news is that the Obama campaign will probably single handily stave off a recession in the advertising market as they put their cash hoard to work.
In a football game, the fans boo and then go back to watching the game convinced they saw it better than the guys on the field and the review team in the replay booth – but the final call is the final call. In this election, there will definitely be some booing by the defeated team and, unfortunately, we have no replay booth.
Just a Constitution, a process, and our optimism (I hope) as a country. I think this is closer than the "polls" indicate and we need to be prepared for that reality as a country. Surveys, polls, and numbers are suspect things but are useful tools in a marketing campaign (see point #1 above). If you read one, consider the source, look at the sample, and use it as one of many data points over time. I still remember the 2000 election and seeing the aforementioned pieces actually work (in a bar in Boston believe it or not) as well as the US population getting an eduction on what the electoral college was all about. One side won and one side lost, but the process works.
Venture Vice 